Roald Dahl's WWII Medals Reunited With Family

Roald Dahl as a young man (Picture: Carl Van Vetchen). 

The medals of Roald Dahl have been sent to his family – 73 years after the Second World War ended.

The children’s author and Second World War RAF pilot died in 1990, aged 74 and never picked the medals up himself because of what his grandson called a “bureaucratic mix-up”.

Now all four medals have been sent to his grandson, Ned Donovan.

Mr Donovan then presented the medals to his step grandmother as a surprise for her 80th birthday.

"She was extremely thrilled and said she was going to put them under her pillow," Mr Donovan told the BBC.

Roald Dahl was working for Shell in East Africa when WWII broke out. He enlisted and was severely injured in September 1940 after he crashed landed in the Western Desert.

He recovered and fought in the Battle of Athens before being posted to Washington where he worked in intelligence.

After the war he left the Armed Forces and became a children’s author, writing bestsellers such as ‘Matilda’, ‘The BFG’, ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ and ‘The Twits’.